Walks through Spain, Italy and other places

San Gimignano – Abadia Isola April 22nd

We went down for breakfast which had been set out for us. We didn’t see our welcoming nun again. Their daily scheduled is laid out as below so she would have been at mass.

I met a cyclist at breakfast who was following the Via Francigena from Pavia to Rome doing about 4 of our stages every day and following the route as best you can on a mountain bike.
Walking through San Gimignano on the way out at 9 am, there were already tour groups wandering around. One Chinese group were having gelato ! The two rival shops in the main square were already open. One advertises itself as the ‘best gelato in the world’ and the other as ‘winner of the world’s best gelato award’. I certainly enjoyed my cinnamon and pistachio gelato the day before!

A last view of San Gimignano

Our route took us through some beautiful country again.

Wild cyclamenArtichokes growing in rich red soil

Hazelnut trees perhaps ?

We passed through the town of Colle Di Val d’Elsa. It has a beautiful medieval centre but little of the tourist trappings of San Gimignano. Perhaps this is because it has a relatively extensive surrounding urban area, whilst S Gimignano is surrounded by beautiful countyside .

The town of Colle

The hostel is in a hamlet surrounding a 12th century church. This used to be a fortified abbey surrounded by marsh land, again a haven for pilgrims. There is also accommodation for quite a few families of boat people .

Paul, good to see you are enjoying gelati. My most typically secected are pistachio and limone – the soft and the sharp. They establish a critical benchmark for quality, in my view. p.s. There is a shop in Newtown Sydney, ‘the Cow and the Moon’ which recently won a world gelati competition. Their gelato was superb . . And while we are on ‘world’s best’ the guy who owns Ona coffee in Canberra just won ‘world champion barista’ award. It’s a funny old world.

“The Lord moveth in the human heart as the pilgrim through the land of his travels” …
this stuff leaves cities for dead.
Much vicarious enjoyment to be had from the pikkies ‘n anecdotes … you will have saved yourself YEARS off purgatory!
Great to hear of travels that are about the journey more than the destination … Rome’s shit.
R.